1.Anthony fought a strange fight, wrestling DC - clearly against his Couch advice.
2. so then the coaches left because they were so mad and Anthony fucking retired ??? WTF?
3. props to DC , great fight

so… Gegard finshed Wiedman …

good fight by both, they fought very hard. but i was surprised how tired both where in round 1

wiedman got badly hit with the knee. you could see he had his hands on the ground, saw the knee coming , lifted the arms for a fraction on a second (obiously thinking to defend his head) - but put them back on the mat because of the rules . bam got hit and now, it was legal because he touched -off- touched the ground

the athletic comission clearly fucked that up

the ref also did not a good job as he left him under the impressio it was illegal and then waved of the fight
he said to him: illegal knee, are you okay and weidman responded “No”

Yeah, not sure what Rumble was thinking with that strategy. I can understand throwing in some takedowns into his striking to keep DC guessing and hopefully setting up a big strike, but just purely trying to out wrestle him?! Foolish.

The way I saw the Mousasi Knee was that Gegard was the one who picked Weidman’s second hand off the mat because he knew that had both hands been down it would have been illegal. However, due to the ref’s angle he could not see the second hand and for some reason decided that meant it must have been down and therefore the Knee was illegal. When the ref asked Weidman if he was ok, Chris was an opportunity to try to cheat and get a rest (he was clearly gassed) so he pretended he was hurt more than he was. When the ref saw the replay and realized the Knee was legal Weidman’s trickery backfired on him and the doctor called the fight believing that Chris was badly hurt and unable to continue fighting.

Weird ending/stoppage though no doubt.

Personally I think they should just completely do away with those “no knees to the head of hands are down” rules altogether. If you want to avoid getting kneed in the head, then either defend it, or change your position so you aren’t in a position that is open to them anymore. No more rules that protect or foster “fatal tendencies.”

On the ground you can’t really generate the same mass transfer that you can on your feet, so they really aren’t any more dangerous on the ground (say in side control) than say a flying knee (which actually can generate some of the most force of any knee).

If you find yourself on your knees, and you think your opponent is in a position to throw a knee to your head, just go to your back on the ground and try to establish and fight from a Guard. IMO rules like the “no kneeing Kneeling/down opponents” and “no elbows to the back” are all about protecting wrestlers from some of their bad habits (when it comes to combat, they are great habits for a wrestling match).

I understand eliminating things like soccer kicks to the head of downed opponents and head stomps because in the former you can just generate so much devastating force and in the later not only can you put your whole body weight into the strike, but your opponent’s head is stabilized by the ground and has no where to go o dissipate the forces. But I don’t think knees are any more dangerous to a Kneeling opponent than they are from a solid Thai Clinch or against an incoming shot attempt (and both of those are still legal).

I agree once again with what you say only one remark . As long as the cage is there no knees to a lying or kneeling opponent. It happens multiple times that a guy is pressed against the cage within a fight.

this could either be because he is trying to get up or because his head is trapped. I think its not a good idea to allow knees here. if the head has no room to move back when its hit, the force of a knee can be too much for the brain.

Years ago wrestlers like Tito Ortiz and Mark Kerr would take a guy down, then “trap” him in a near side cradle. Non-wrestler guys would be 100% stuck.

Instead of turning him to his back, Ortiz/Kerr would just hold the guy immobile and knee his head until the ref stopped the fight. It was super effective. Either smashing dudes head, or opening big cuts around the eyes.

I think during the post fight interview with Rogan in the Octagon Rumble said something to the effect when announcing his retirement that there are better things to do than get punched in the face for a living…or words to that effect. That might be telling commentary as to why he was constantly trying to take down DC. I honestly think that he didn’t want to get hit in the face and was actually mentally already retired and just fighting for one more pay check…Who knows?

Are there any other good theories why a fighter who relies on his strong striking and KO power would try to takedown a far superior grappler?

Why would you despise wrestlers? Wrestling has proven to be one of the very best arts for mma. I don’t have to give you a list of the many successful wrestlers who have had great success in mma and in fact several of them have become champions. Wrestling is so powerful that GSP, who came from a Karate background decided to become proficient at wrestling and trained with the Canadian Olympic team. His success since losing to Wrestler Matt Hughes has been legendary!

When a world class wrestler enters the mma scene and learns to strike and defend BJJ submissions they are virtually unstoppable!